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Thread: your favourite poem/s of all time

  1. #16
    A User, but Registered! tonywalt's Avatar
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    How Is Your Heart?
    Charles Bukowski

    during my worst times
    on the park benches
    in the jails
    or living with
    whores
    I always had this certain
    contentment—
    I wouldn’t call it
    happiness—
    it was more of an inner
    balance
    that settled for
    whatever was occuring
    and it helped in the
    factories
    and when relationships
    went wrong
    with the
    girls.

    it helped
    through the
    wars and the
    hangovers
    the backalley fights
    the
    hospitals.

    to awaken in a cheap room
    in a strange city and
    pull up the shade—
    this was the craziest kind of
    contentment

    and to walk across the floor
    to an old dresser with a
    cracked mirror—
    see myself, ugly,
    grinning at it all.

    what matters most is
    how well you
    walk through the
    fire.

  2. #17
    On the road, but not! Danik 2016's Avatar
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    Beautiful, Tony! But where are your own poems?
    "I seemed to have sensed also from an early age that some of my experiences as a reader would change me more as a person than would many an event in the world where I sat and read. "
    Gerald Murnane, Tamarisk Row

  3. #18
    A User, but Registered! tonywalt's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Danik 2016 View Post
    Beautiful, Tony! But where are your own poems?
    They're still in the personal poetry sections. Oh god, should I kiss the ocean - and then dive into her soft depths and retrieve my poems from the bottom, gasping.
    Last edited by tonywalt; 07-14-2020 at 07:08 PM.

  4. #19
    A User, but Registered! tonywalt's Avatar
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    This is a photograph of me by Margaret Atwood


    It was taken some time ago.
    At first it seems to be
    a smeared
    print: blurred lines and grey flecks
    blended with the paper;

    then, as you scan
    it, you see in the left-hand corner
    a thing that is like a branch: part of a tree
    (balsam or spruce) emerging
    and, to the right, halfway up
    what ought to be a gentle
    slope, a small frame house.

    In the background there is a lake,
    and beyond that, some low hills.

    (The photograph was taken
    the day after I drowned.

    I am in the lake, in the center
    of the picture, just under the surface.

    It is difficult to say where
    precisely, or to say
    how large or small I am:
    the effect of water
    on light is a distortion

    but if you look long enough,
    eventually
    you will be able to see me.)

  5. #20
    Registered User tailor STATELY's Avatar
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    Rather sad, melancholy piece... enjoyed.

    Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
    tailor
    tailor

    who am I but a stitch in time
    what if I were to bare my soul
    would you see me origami

    7-8-2015

  6. #21
    A User, but Registered! tonywalt's Avatar
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    For Jane


    225 days under grass
    and you know more than I.
    they have long taken your blood,
    you are a dry stick in a basket.
    is this how it works?
    in this room
    the hours of love
    still make shadows.

    when you left
    you took almost
    everything.
    I kneel in the nights
    before tigers
    that will not let me be.

    what you were
    will not happen again.
    the tigers have found me
    and I do not care.

    (charles bukowski)

  7. #22
    A User, but Registered! tonywalt's Avatar
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    This Be The Verse

    BY PHILIP LARKIN

    They f uck you up, your mum and dad.
    They may not mean to, but they do.
    They fill you with the faults they had
    And add some extra, just for you.

    But they were ****ed up in their turn
    By fools in old-style hats and coats,
    Who half the time were soppy-stern
    And half at one another’s throats.

    Man hands on misery to man.
    It deepens like a coastal shelf.
    Get out as early as you can,
    And don’t have any kids yourself.

  8. #23
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    “Time of the Mad Atom”

    This is the age of the half-read page.

    And the quick hash and the mad dash.

    The bright night with the nerves tight.

    The plane hop and the brief stop.

    The lamp tan in a short span.

    The Big Shot in a good spot.

    And the brain strain and the heart pain.

    And the cat naps till the spring snaps—

    And the fun’s done!

    By Virginia Brasier

    For at least 40 years I have believed that to be by Carl Sandburg. I want to believe it was misattributed by the place I first heard it (and not that I had Alzheimer's when I was relatively young).

  9. #24
    On the road, but not! Danik 2016's Avatar
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    Hello,SQ, welcome back. Enjoyed the poem.

    "The Big Shot in a good spot." Quite up to date!
    "I seemed to have sensed also from an early age that some of my experiences as a reader would change me more as a person than would many an event in the world where I sat and read. "
    Gerald Murnane, Tamarisk Row

  10. #25
    Dragon lover Bluebiird's Avatar
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    Ozymandias - Percy Shelley (to be completely honest I had to look up who it was by, I haven't read it for a while). Don't know why. I just really like it.
    I just like;

    "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings;
    Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
    Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
    Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
    The lone and level sands stretch far away."

    most of all. It sticks in my mind, though I usually paraphrase it (had to look up the quote too to be correct)
    Last edited by Bluebiird; 04-23-2022 at 09:17 PM.
    No doubt but there is none other beeste comparable to the mightie dragon in awsome power and majestie, and few so worthie of the diligent studies of wise men - Gildas Magnus, Ars Draconis, 1465

  11. #26
    Registered User tailor STATELY's Avatar
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    Great poem

    Too many for me to nail down at this time... need to mull over.

    Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
    tailor STATELY

    p.s. just noticed I posted a few years ago with the same quandary... could prolly add to the list lol.

    Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
    tailor STATELY
    Last edited by tailor STATELY; 04-24-2022 at 12:11 AM. Reason: p.s.
    tailor

    who am I but a stitch in time
    what if I were to bare my soul
    would you see me origami

    7-8-2015

  12. #27
    Registered User NikolaiI's Avatar
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    I have been loving Rilke lately.

    THE PANTHER

    His weary glance, from passing by the bars,
    Has grown into a dazed and vacant stare;
    It seems to him there are a thousand bars
    And out beyond those bars the empty air.

    The pad of his strong feet, that ceaseless sound
    Of supple tread behind the iron bands,
    Is like a dance of strength circling around,
    While in the circle, stunned, a great will stands.

    But there are times the pupils of his eyes
    Dilate, the strong limbs stand alert, apart,
    Tense with the flood of visions that arise
    Only to sink and die within his heart.

  13. #28
    Registered User NikolaiI's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bluebiird View Post
    Ozymandias - Percy Shelley (to be completely honest I had to look up who it was by, I haven't read it for a while). Don't know why. I just really like it.
    I just like;

    "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings;
    Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
    Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
    Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
    The lone and level sands stretch far away."

    most of all. It sticks in my mind, though I usually paraphrase it (had to look up the quote too to be correct)
    I love Shelley a lot. I love Alastor, or, the spirit of Solitude by him.

    Your post of Ozymandias reminds me of Ad Olum, one of my favorite by Stevenson.

    Ad Olum
    Call me not rebel, though { here at every word
    {in what I sing
    If I no longer hail thee { King and Lord
    { Lord and King
    I have redeemed myself with all I had,
    And now possess my fortunes poor but glad.
    With all I had I have redeemed myself,
    And escaped at once from slavery and pelf.
    The unruly wishes must a ruler take,
    Our high desires do our low fortunes make:
    Those only who desire palatial things
    Do bear the fetters and the frowns of Kings;
    Set free thy slave; thou settest free thyself.

    https://www.poetryloverspage.com/poe...n/ad_olum.html

    But in general, William Blake was more philosophically astute.

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